Searching for the Sound: My Life with the Grateful Dead (2005)
By Phil Lesh

1. Who knows who this guy is? Who the Grateful Dead are? Who in the audience was between 15 and 25 in 1967?

2. Who is Phil? Bass player for the GD?

3. Phil's book: difficult for him to write. The first half is euphoric, but haunted by what we all know: Jerry dies at the end; second half, after Altamont is mostly downhill

• Early history: classical training, jazz (San Mateo Jazz Band)


• The San Francisco Scene: Ken Kesey (Cuckoo's Nest), Jerry, Pigpen, Bobby:
  Star Wars moment, cf. R2D2 meets C3PO


• Drugs: the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests (Tom Wolfe): group mind


• Euphoria


• Altamont Speedway: Sympathy for the Devil; the end of the Woodstock generation


• Touring, touring, touring: smart playing (working out the tunes on the road before recording them; albums only a blueprint; no two shows ever the same) = smart business (tapers)


• Ignoring the fat man in the room: haunted with guilt about Jerry


• Phil's drinking: did this give Jerry permission?


• The need to support the extended family of band workers, etc. and so the inability to stop touring so Jerry could rest


• The next phase: Phil and Friends

4. Phil & Friends: the music as the alternative autobiography;

• what songs did Phil like?


• What songs by other bands would he cover?


• What kind of music could he make once he was free of the GD?